FriendOfDeSoto

@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word for the happiness in finding the exact right word?⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Wortfindungseuphorie.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s not universally true. Necrophiles may be past that, according to preference.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Kids are probably old enough to get it. I would just think that you will be loading a shotgun that’s going to shoot you in the face down the line. Either the ladies will get in each other’s hair or, worse, they’ll team up against you. I think your girlfriend is either insane or not entirely honest when she says she would be fine with your arrangement. I would sooner suggest you look for a place closeby. I’m guessing the 15yo is eye rolling you hard and the 13yo will soon not care about you either. You’ve carried them through the divorce rough spot with your unique living arrangement. Take a bow and let it go. Provide a better environment for your new relationship.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  But everyone deserves a threat and if you live in the USA, then tip is required…

  That typo is more apt than intended.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is "AI" the end of truth?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  We are just asking old questions here. The printing press, novels, and pamphlets were the end of truth! We struggled, many people died, but life moved on. Then newspapers, more death, radio, world wars. Television, photoshop, the internet - fewer deaths in between but still. And life moved on.

  Every new medium brought a phase of uncertainty (and possible carnage). That’s where we are right now. Every time we think “this is the worst EVER.” Until the next thing comes around. We will figure out the slop tsunami as well. I think fewer people will die than during the reformation.

  Some people will successfully bend truth to generated video or whatever. But in the end, most will not succeed. Because we get wiser at spotting the bullshit. Q Anon showed us the learning isn’t a linear development; it follows more of a two steps forward, one step back pattern.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it better to: [A] watch videos content on a flagship/midrange smartphone that you already have, OR [B] get a cheap tablet (say, around $200 USD) to watch videos?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Have you ever noticed the difference in screen quality before? Did you ever watch a YT video on something slightly better than a cathode ray monitor and thought to yourself: “hmm, this is shit.”? If so, don’t cheap out on the tablet. Maybe a used iPad might even be ideal. I’m leaning Apple here because Android tablet screens tend to be worse on average and there will be fewer good ones on the resale market.

  If you don’t want a big TV, how about a smaller one that you can cast content to? Just as another suggestion because other folks have already suggested laptops.

  As you get older, your eyes turn to shit and most of this won’t matter that much. So you’re right to be cautious on the spending.

  I proudly watch movies on my phone. If I don’t want to watch Paw Patrol or Frozen it’s the only way to get some not-made-for-kids content in. And I can take it to the toilet and continue watching. And I don’t mean porn, just to clarify. Sure, as the cinematic experience goes, it isn’t what Christopher Nolan had in mind but shit happens. It’s that or nothing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not a geneticist, I don’t even play one on TV. But i’m fairly confident in saying: evening out? That’s not how this works. When your daddy’s sperm combined with your mother’s egg, a whole host of chance processes happened to make up your genes. It’s random as far as I can tell. It isn’t just averaging out between them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If there's a sort of "apocalyptic" event but there are still surviving communities, will people be able to make eyeglasses again, or are people with vision issues gonna be fucked?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It took centuries to get to disposable contact lenses while trying to figure out the physics, both in optics and in manufacturing any sort of spectacles, at the same time.

  Will the survivors of the apocalypse be able to pick up where we left off or will they essentially start from scratch? That depends on the apocalypse and on the survivors. Do documents and knowledge survive, perhaps in a stash or in digital form? Do the survivors include an optician or a material engineer? Chances look good if that’s the case. If no, life will get a lot harder for many people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Germany is a collection of regions and former midieval fiefdoms that pretty much all hate each other. Munich and surroundings is representative of Munich, not the whole country. But a lot of the stereotypical things Americans think of when thinking of Germany will be there. Most of the South was occupied by US forces post WW2 and all the lederhosen, Oktoberfest, and Neuschwanstein Castle should feel just right for you. And that pisses off the Germans in the rest of the country like telling a Texan their BBQ is trash.

  Somebody said Germans aren’t into smalltalk. That’s probably true by comparison to the average American but by comparison to their countrymen in the North they are positively chatty in Bavaria.

  Bring cash or research at least two ways to get your hands on it while in the country. Just in case one method fails. A lot of places do not accept credit cards and that will probably extend to US debit cards that run on a cc system.

  And yes, especially intercity trains are a clustereff of neglect and wear and tear and timetables are not to be trusted at all.

  Don’t rent a car and just floor it on the autobahn. Take it at 120kph/75mph first for an hour before you put your pedal to the metal. Get a feel for the road and the rules first because Germans love a rule. And it decreases your chance of hitting a concrete pillar. No speed limit areas tend to be between cities, not on the built up areas. Know that speeding tickets will be charged after the fact or they will follow you by mail.

  The staring people refer to here may be, to a large extent, that if there are no Chinese tourists in the area, American ones will be the loudest ones around, carrying their cute little fear of dehydration made manifest water bottles around. You look funny to us and we can’t help it. Don’t buy bottled water, tap is fine to drink. But there aren’t drinking fountains around. A lot of drinks in bottles and cans charge a deposit fee you’ll get back when you return the empty container to the supermarket - your kid will know the drill.

  If you’re planning to cross borders be prepared for actual border checks. Our version of ICE crackdowns is making the federal police force delay EU cross border traffic with pretty much EU-illegal ID checks. We spend absolute millions of Euros, accruing a gazillion hours of overtime to catch two illegal immigrants or thereabouts. Political theater with waiting times for all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How difficult would it be to live in a modern-day developed country without a smartphone?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Doesn’t difficult very much depend on what you think matters? You’re instantly missing out on anything app, anything QR-code related (ordering food in some restaurants, links, etc.), membership cards that no longer exist in physical form. Some places sell certain tickets online only and then you may need a printer or you’re SOL. I’m sure in missing something so that’s not extensive.

  But at the same time, if you have a dumb phone, you can still stay in touch with friends and family. You’ll be missing out on images being sent that are bigger than 2 pixels. But you wouldn’t be completely out of the loop. And if you have an internet ready computer at home or at the next door library, just not on you at all times, I think that’s crucial. Without that you’re ending up in all sorts of trouble.

  I would say it’s doable if you are good at not giving F’s. If at the same time you only want to use cash or just no credit cards you’ll be making your life much harder though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Have you ever noticed no one ever looks at a penis and then says, "wow, he must have big feet."⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We must hang out in very different circles then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨With all these countries announcing to finally recognise Palastine⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think it will be a big win for the Palestinians. One reason why this hasn’t happened in the past is that there is no reliable, functional government in place that governs over all of the territory. You had Hamas in Gaza and the PLO in most of the West Bank and they don’t see eye to eye. This hasn’t changed. It will be difficult for these established governments to cooperate with a a fractured non-functional one so the benefits for the Palestinian people will only be patchy and homeopathic.

  So I fear recognizing a Palestinian state is actually an impotent, diplomatic gesture - like: “we see what’s going on there, it’s horrible, and we don’t have the resolve to do anything else to bring Israel back to the status quo ante.” It’s finger wagging at Israel more than actual support for the Palestinians. It’s a gesture that can easily be reversed as well, like the orange one moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. And I think that’s why these announcements of recognition fall on very deaf ears in Tel Aviv. It’s political theater for the audiences in the countries whose governments have announced this. “Look, we are doing something! (But we’re doing not that much really, we could do other things as well, isolate the Israeli government and/or cut it off palpably from necessary economic and military supply chain support. But we won’t. It’s a complicated conundrum, that Middle East. And we’re not quite ready to jeopardize the existence of Israel over this.)”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨it shouldn't be too hard to extend the right to be forgotten to deadnames as well, legislatively⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it is hard though, legislatively, as the RTBF already proves. It’s a terribly vague set of rules that put search engines in the position where they have to evaluate a claim and then sit in judgement over it with little to no oversight and then only a public form of objection if this somehow ends up in a court. This is not a good process. Adding more reasons to use a bad process doesn’t sound like a great idea regardless of how well intentioned they are.

  An issue I see are massive Streisand effects. One is occurring if you need to take a Google to court for not following up on your RTBF claim. Nobody really cared about your drunk driving incident from 2019 until you fill the headlines with your court proceedings. Now everybody knows. The other is this: let’s say Roberta became Robert. Calling him Roberta would be dead naming him. But if every time I framed it as “Robert Streisand (known until 2023 as Roberta Streisand)” I’m merely stating fact and I don’t see how many courts will intervene against that. Why can virtually everybody still dead name Chelsea Manning? Because every time her name was mentioned post transition they added this factual context. So all you will achieve in the end is that all trolls and dickheads will just use the legally defendable boiler plate phrase. And hang a much brighter lantern on the issue.

  Just to be clear: I’m not defending anybody deadnaming somebody else. I’m just looking at this issue, the RTBF, and I’m thinking of that road to hell and with what it is paved.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you went to an island, and formed a new country and forcibly inject everyone there with a drug that makes them happy, you new country could surpass Finland as the "Happiest country in the world"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think the people who do the happiness statistic could see past the “forcibly inject” part.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does it damage my phone in any way it I use a faulty cable to charge it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No one here can tell you for sure what’s wrong with your cable. So no one can answer if it will be good or bad over time. Slow (normal) charging is better for your battery than fast charging. A wobbly wire might stop and restart the charging process, which might be detrimental to the battery over time.

  But it could also be that your port is so clogged up with pocket lint that the contact in your phone is affected and that’s why fast charging no longer works. Something could be broken in the brick you use and that’s why it won’t work any more. It could be that the cable was bent so many times it’s broken. It’s probably that.

  You could try to narrow down where the error lies. If you use a friend’s cable does the same thing happen? Friend’s fine-working cable in your power brick? If you got a phone repair kiosk in your neighborhood, maybe ask them if they could clean your port. If they’re friendly, they can probably help you narrow down this problem also.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you were reincarnated, wouldn't it be elsewhere in the universe?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s safe to say these thoughts weren’t necessarily factored in in the first beliefs in reincarnation. A lot of this stuff is about thinking horizons. If you don’t know about the vastness of space, you think everything happens around you. So you must be reborn close as well. And then the universe is being revealed (still) bit by bit. If your science isn’t great, you could be forgiven for thinking the world is 6000 years old and maybe created in a week. But then your horizons broaden and there is a lag in how the new knowledge filters into these established belief systems. So if you tried to argue logically about a reincarnation system, yes, it would be likely that you could become a rock near a supermassive black hole or a slug on a planet far, far away just as much as an ant on Earth (depending on how you fared in life). But logic and belief are natural opponents. I think all the Dalai Lamas were reincarnated on this planet. So that’s odd then, isn’t it? Doubt lengthens the lag.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"A guitarist who's also an astronaut" sounds more impressive than "An astronaut who plays the guitar", despite both meaning the same thing.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If either one says anyways here’s wonderwall and launches into the song I’ll be ready to shoot them into the sun.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The worst day to get Groundhog Day'd would be when you have an early flight in the morning⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I fear as the number n of the repeated day approaches infinity, any day would be horrible to have to relive again. And again. And again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do females got to be so hard to talk or flirt with?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If your approach at dating hasn’t materialized in anything, perhaps it is time to change your approach. For me, the best things happened when I wasn’t trying at all. Be social, be courteous, be nice - and as the owner of a penis: non-threatening.

  You have self identified a problem of anxiety. If your next step is to criticize all “females” as being difficult in terms of dating, you’re missing a beat here and making a bad word choice. The problem may be more of a you-problem than a them-problem. Also, no matter the primary sexual organ situation, people can pick up on both an air of entitlement or the scent of desperation.

  Also, all cicadas shout for sex but not every cicadas gets laid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To win the show Alone, could someone smuggle a GPS locator inside of their anus?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If there is no checking in place, like an airport security check and/or check for devices emitting radio waves. Also, the producers know where the candidates are at, don’t they? If they spot regular drone flights in the area, I think the game will be up as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Prince Andrew must be seething that Donald Trump gets to chug along like nothing happened.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean by normal people standards, you are correct. He’s had to replace a golden spoon up his royal posterior with a silver one. But he still lives in a big house and will never want for money in his life. His involvement did cost him his representative job. He’s been royally demoted. So there were consequences for him although I’d be the first to agree they weren’t sufficiently punitive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who had it worse?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Now i’m torn. On the one hand I want to dismiss your counter argument as a counter factual and therefore there is no need to even glance at it. On the other hand, the omnipotent dick is part of the equation and he can control these things and I kinda see where you’re coming from. I would say he is being more of a d though because he is rubbing Picard’s nose in how unprepared humanity is in the stars. The fact that his finger snapping detour shortened the encounter timeline with the Borgs may have had the one positive effect: forewarning for the feds. And that may have put them in a position to win by the skin of their teeth. So your counter argument holds some limited and not massive amount of water.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who had it worse?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Q is just a dick. He could’ve brought Voyager back home but didn’t and then involved Janeway in that continuufederacy civil war. He exposed Picard and crew to the Borgs and didn’t lift a finger when he got Locutussed. I think in terms of dead people he may have screwed Picard over more. I may be wrong but I think more people died in that cross section being cut out by the Borgs as a direct result of Q finger snapping the D out to meet them. But at the core, he just does stuff because he’s a bored omnipotent dick and he makes everyone in his path suffer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In my house, I have a no dumping on the couch rule. If you come in and take a dump on my couch, I don’t care how insightful your thoughts are, you’re out the door. In terms of the fediverse, you merely seem confused about what constitutes taking a dump. These rules are available though, you just have to read them.

  If you have spare time while developing your Don Quiote complex, give a passing thought to what censorship means. Nobody is banning you from having your super intellectual thoughts about government on the internet. Start a blog, your own lemmy instance, and fire away. But nobody has to listen to your thoughts; we’re free to go seek out other bullshit if we so please. That’s not censorship, that’s how the free exchange of ideas works. You don’t have the right to be heard on your terms in somebody else’s forum. And who knows, maybe modding your own would teach you a level of empathy that might make you feel embarrassed about your comments on this thread.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There is no accounting for taste.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do people hate coldplay?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They are the epitome of the adage that their earlier stuff was better. For me, they jumped the shark when Roman Catholic bells were ringing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I just realized some people LIKE talking to each other.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And those folks aren’t on here because they already do their socializing in person. A frightful thought.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a font/typeface designing program that is available for Windows or Linux that supports creation of variable fonts and OpenType features?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe 10 years ago I tried designing a font in Inkscape. It was possible but more of a gimmick. I then installed Fontforge and very quickly decided I wasn’t going to learn how to use it, didn’t have the bandwidth. But the tools are there. Both methods have a learning curve but I think have enough instruction resources online.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Wars is an ode to the stupidest use of battle lasers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you beginning to feel a narrowing of your throat?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In languages which use complex written characters (such as Chinese's logographs), is there an equivalent to English's "text speak" shorthand?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s difficult 2 transpose what u can do in English just 2 other languages written in the Latin alphabet for centuries. English has a remarkable and quite confusing amount of homophones that is absent from other indoeuropean languages. The apostrophe as a letter skipped marker is fairly universal. But beyond that it’s already a different ball game in other more similar languages. 2 to too, 4 for, r u - that’s very English only.

  Simplified Chinese characters are a hint at what they did on the Chinese mainland to cut down on writing time. Beyond that (and I don’t speak the language so 🧂) there are single character abbreviations for countries. 美国 is America and 美 suffices as shorthand, which means beauty otherwise. Your example phrase is “R u coming 2nite?” In English we use the present progressive tense here, which doesn’t exist like that in Mandarin. It would be phrased as “Come tonight?” The question mark could be replaced with the character that functions as a question marker by itself. And I think you can do this in 3-4 characters and I think they might just beat you to it in a bilingual texting competition in terms of speed.

  The mainland population may also be more adept to obfuscate their speech especially online. So similarly pronounced character combinations take over the meaning of a term the censors are actively looking for.

  The Japanese like shortening stuff, mostly loanwords, to unrecognizable words. The word for part time work is アルバイト (arubaito) taken from the German for work (Arbeit). Cool kids have whittled it down to baito. A remote control has become a リモコン (rimokon) in normal parlance. Overly long Chinese character combos like 自動販売機 for a vending machine get shortened to 自販機 dropping characters that can be inferred (if you speak it).

  I also want to add that text speak is heavily influenced by restrictions on text length and charges for each text. Non Latin script characters take up more than one Latin character per Chinese character for instance. It’s probably 5+ in decoding per character. So you reach 160 letters quite quickly and that’s why SMS in China was very cheap and quickly adopted a system where message threads would be sent and put back together on the recipient’s phone. In Japan they used email from the start, even in dumb phone T9 texting days. They had no Twitter-like restrictions on text length so they didn’t need to be shorter than what their thumbs could successfully fumble together.